Stupidest email ever sent?

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SamNichols

New Member
Location
Colne, Lancs
Yesterday I got an email from the University of Manchester to say that they were sending me a letter, they then included the contents of the letter in the email (in PDF form).
What did the letter say? It said: register online.

Bureaucrats, eh? Always find the hardest way to do the simplest things...
 

Tim Bennet.

Entirely Average Member
Location
S of Kendal
The hardest way to do the simplest thing?

Well, recently I have been seeing a consultant at the Royal Infirmary. He then reports back to my GP by dictating a letter to his PA, who then types it up and sends it in the post to the surgery, where another secretary opens it and finally scans it so my doctor upstairs can read it on line!

I'm sure someone has worked out a short cut there somewhere!
 

Melvil

Guest
Tim Bennet. said:
The hardest way to do the simplest thing?

Well, recently I have been seeing a consultant at the Royal Infirmary. He then reports back to my GP by dictating a letter to his PA, who then types it up and sends it in the post to the surgery, where another secretary opens it and finally scans it so my doctor upstairs can read it on line!

I'm sure someone has worked out a short cut there somewhere!

Too many links in that chain, that's for sure!
 

Keith Oates

Janner
Location
Penarth, Wales
I was once in an office where people were sending e-mails to each other and they were in the same room and could even talk without having to raise the voice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

Will1985

Über Member
Location
South Norfolk
And some people wonder why the health service is so bad!?!? There are more pen pushing middle managers/administrators (excluding secretaries) in the NHS than doctors.

I've worked for my father doing his GP admin before and it is exactly like Tim describes for most hospitals. The financial drain that is NHS.net is supposed to remove the need for all the paper, yet many hospital executives have taken the decision to outlaw email letters on the grounds that it is an insecure system. The fact is, once the letter has been scanned by the GP it will sit in a pile for 3 months before being shredded!
That is only the first reason why no politician interested in keeping their job will think about NHS "reform".
 

LOGAN 5

New Member
Keith Oates said:
I was once in an office where people were sending e-mails to each other and they were in the same room and could even talk without having to raise the voice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We do that in our office! I send e-mails to somebody sitting 2 feet away. It's easier than talking to them or picking up the phone to somebody else in the building......lazy I know...
 

Sh4rkyBloke

Jaffa Cake monster
Location
Manchester, UK
SamNichols said:
Yesterday I got an email from the University of Manchester to say that they were sending me a letter, they then included the contents of the letter in the email (in PDF form).
What did the letter say? It said: register online.
Sounds about right.. working there often brightens my life with the new depths of stupidity that people can stoop to. :blush:
 

domtyler

Über Member
For the most mind boggling bureaucratic shenanigans you need to go to India. Maybe they have got better now but fifteen years ago there were people typing in text to a computer and printing it out, handing the print out to someone else who would copy it out long hand, twice, file away one copy and then type it back in to another computer, print it out and post off the printout to another office where the process would be repeated. Aaaarrrggghhh....
 

Big Bren

New Member
Location
Yorkshire
The decline in verbal communication in the workplace mirrors the rise of the blame culture that most organisations have adopted; as a consequence, most workers follow the doctrine of CYA - covering your arse.

A colleague of mine has a sign on his office wall - 'If it's not in writing, it didn't happen'

Bren
 

palinurus

Velo, boulot, dodo
Location
Watford
Keith Oates said:
I was once in an office where people were sending e-mails to each other and they were in the same room and could even talk without having to raise the voice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do this too.

(1) I don't like to talk to some of my colleagues.

(2) Sometimes it's a long walk to their desk, and i've sort of got comfortable, and the route doesn't happen to go past the coffee machine.

(3) I try to avoid using the phone at work. Every now and then my phone actually rings, it does this so infrequently that it surprises me every time. Once my phone was faulty, when someone called me it didn't ring. It was like that for six weeks. I didn't notice.

I often think this: if I lose this job, i'm going to have one f*** of a problem getting another.
 

radger

Veteran
Location
Bristol
Keith Oates said:
I was once in an office where people were sending e-mails to each other and they were in the same room and could even talk without having to raise the voice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do that. It's a way of bitching about the boss without getting into trouble. As I am the 'IT person' in addition to the rest of my job, it's not as if someone is going to know how to read it later either. Also, I know where the back-up tapes are (in my bag) and I can make fire. :blush:
 

asterix

Comrade Member
Location
Limoges or York
palinurus;46614][quote name= said:
I was once in an office where people were sending e-mails to each other and they were in the same room and could even talk without having to raise the voice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do this too.

(1) I don't like to talk to some of my colleagues.

(2) Sometimes it's a long walk to their desk, and i've sort of got comfortable, and the route doesn't happen to go past the coffee machine.

(3) I try to avoid using the phone at work. Every now and then my phone actually rings, it does this so infrequently that it surprises me every time. Once my phone was faulty, when someone called me it didn't ring. It was like that for six weeks. I didn't notice.

I often think this: if I lose this job, i'm going to have one f*** of a problem getting another.[/QUOTE]


You'd be surprised, there are plenty of jobs like that. How d'you think I earned a living for so long?
 

Big Bren

New Member
Location
Yorkshire
Typical tale of NHS woe Maggot.

I work in the third sector and a lot of our business is on a sub contract basis from the statutory sector, including the NHS. If we operated anywhere near as inefficiently as they do, our contracts would be in jeopardy before we could say 'purchaser/provider split!'

Bren
 

domd1979

Veteran
Location
Staffordshire
Last month I dealt with an email that had been sent to a Minister, who'd forwarded it to some assistant, who printed it, sent it to someone else, who scanned it, who emailed it to Government Office West Midlands, who emailed it to a colleague, who emailed it to me to reply to. Only took a month to reach me.....


SamNichols said:
Yesterday I got an email from the University of Manchester to say that they were sending me a letter, they then included the contents of the letter in the email (in PDF form).
What did the letter say? It said: register online.

Bureaucrats, eh? Always find the hardest way to do the simplest things...
 

HJ

Cycling in Scotland
Location
Auld Reekie
Tim Bennet. said:
The hardest way to do the simplest thing?

Well, recently I have been seeing a consultant at the Royal Infirmary. He then reports back to my GP by dictating a letter to his PA, who then types it up and sends it in the post to the surgery, where another secretary opens it and finally scans it so my doctor upstairs can read it on line!

I'm sure someone has worked out a short cut there somewhere!

This is why the NHS is the world third largest employer and why it cost so much...
 
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